“Change can happen. Change has happened…”

Poverty makes us unwell. GP Andy Knox sees this in his North Lancashire consulting room, meeting people whose lives could improve if stigma and destitution went away. He tells sociologist Imogen Tyler about the burnout facing doctors and frontline workers trying to care for their communities on scant resources, and reflects on how we need to ask “bigger deeper questions” about what’s making our society sick.

But, inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s idea of hope as an “axe” – as something to practice, actively – Andy says change can happen if we have the humility to listen and the audacity to act differently. Describing working alongside his area’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, he shows how listening can be an anti-stigma practice, and also reflects on the power of social movements. We must not scoff, he says, at “being woke” – indeed, in this time of “apocalypse” and revelation, refusing to “wake up” is not an option.

Note: **In this episode, Andy mentioned suicide rates among female GPs. For recent research on this, see Claire Gerada's work in the British Journal of General Practice.

Credits

Host: Imogen Tyler
Guest: Andy Knox
Executive & Development Producer: Alice Bloch
Project Lead: Imogen Tyler
Project Officer: Danielle Galway
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music & Artwork: Bruce Bennett

Episode resources

• Andy Knox’s forthcoming book Sick Society (2023)
• Hope in the Dark Rebecca Solnit (2004)
• The dictionary of alternatives utopianism and organisation Martin Parker, Fournier, ValeÌrie & Patrick Reedy (2010)
• Poet, writer, activist Dionne Brand receives her honorary degree (2018)
• Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist Kate Raworth (2017)
• The work of Katherine Trebeck
• The value of everything: making and taking in the global economy Marina Mazzucato (2018)
• Learning from the Sixties A lecture by Audre Lorde lecture (1982)
• Andy Knox’s blog at The King’s Fund
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project

Find extended reading lists and learn more about The Stigma Conversations at The Sociological Review

Act!

Trussell Trust
Independent Food Aid Network
Enough is Enough
Disabled People Against Cuts
Everydoctor
Healing Justice
Shelter
Southall Black Sisters
The Peoples Assembly
Acorn